Instagram changes spark uproar with millions of users

Like many other teens and pre-teens, Chris Pothering’s three kids live on the photo sharing social networking site Instagram. So the Seattle attorney isn’t looking forward to telling them she’s going to make them shut down their accounts.

Pothering’s angry about changes in Instagram’s terms of service announced Monday by new owner Facebook that many worry could allow it to use your shared photos in ads or sell them without telling you.

“I’m pretty concerned because there are privacy issues, especially with Instagram being so used by a lot of the teenagers,” Pothering says. And she’s not alone. Twitter has exploded with complaints from people saying they are going to cancel their accounts and delete all their shared pictures. Even the hacker group Anonymous has called for a boycott of the photo sharing site.

Pothering, who specializes in media and intellectual property law, says it’s conceivable an innocent picture you or your kid posted could end up in a condom ad or something similarly unseemly. And she says Instagram can use the data embedded in your images to target ads to you, and the new terms of service say the ads might not even be marked as ads.

But Instagram is insisting the new terms of service have been misinterpreted. In a post on the company’s blog Tuesday, co-founder Kevin Systrom says the company has “heard loud and clear that many users are confused and upset about what the changes mean.”

Systrom says while advertising is a part of the company’s plans to become self-sustaining,”it is not our intention to sell your photos. We are working on update language in the terms to make sure this is clear.”

He also says the company has no plans to use people’s photos as any part of an advertisement.

But despite his efforts to calm the storm, it could be a serious blow to a company that boasts at least 100 million users. One popular photographer who posts frequently on the site calls it “Instagram’s suicide note.”

And Pothering, a social media and licensing attorney with Short Cressman and Burgess in Seattle, says the attempted clarification doesn’t change anything.

“This goes beyond ads and promotions, regardless of what Instagram is saying. And, Instagram isn’t suspending their changes while they make changes. The new TOC go into effect just as planned.”

As Systrom points out, users can prevent Instagram from sharing their photos broadly by simply making their accounts private. But Pothering says that’s unacceptable to her kids, and the millions of young people who consider it a far more desirable social network than Facebook for connecting with others.

“Teenagers are not marking their accounts private. That’s how they build their community, their accounts are public, that’s how their friends find them. I think they’re going to have to delete their accounts.”

The new terms of service take effect January 16, 2013. But Pothering says Instagram is laying claim to any images still posted on the service after December 31st. So if you want to make sure the service can’t use any of your shots, you have to delete them before then.

While many are turning to other photo sharing sites like Flickr or even Twitter, which just introduced new Instagram-like features of its own, Pothering says it’s about more than just the ability to add filters and other effects to your images

“You know, people found community on Instagram. And I think that’s what people are so angry about. They’re going to have to make a decision now really quickly do we abandon our community?”